You Alright Mate

[00:00:00] So welcome to another episode of Man Up, Man Down. This week we're absolutely delighted to welcome someone who's a bit of a local legend in this part of the world, Sam Thomas. I mean, what hasn't Sam done? He started up Sussex Business Times, which is a big business networking magazine, but he also set up business networking. He's created five side football leagues. Yeah, what am I missing out, Volker?

[00:00:30] You put me on the spot now, right? I mean, he was a hairdresser once, which I think is funny, but we talk about that, so I don't want to take anything away. And, you know, he recently has done a lot of work and I've been on his podcast as well, right, around, you know, his campaign for Are You Alright Mate, for suicide prevention, for middle-aged men and success, what success actually means and takes that to schools now, so to educate children early.

[00:00:53] He's, yeah, as you say, he has done so many things, but he has done them all, if I say for the greater good, you know, and he's just an amazing human being. So, yeah, really enjoyed that episode. Could have spent more time with him and I think he said, you're going to be on his podcast next, so. Well, yeah, I guess, well, yeah, that would be great, but, you know, I sort of feel like we need to get him back on because, you know, we only really scraped the surface.

[00:01:22] But before we talk about getting one again, we'll let you guys watch or listen to the episode and let us know what you think. Enjoy. Welcome to the Man Up, Man Down podcast, presented by Volker Ballueder and David Pawsey. We discuss the pressures and challenges faced by men approaching middle age that we're often too embarrassed to speak about with our friends.

[00:01:50] You can find us online at www.manupdown.com. Enjoy the show and don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review. Great. Welcome to another episode of Man Up, Man Down. And it's a great pleasure to have Sam Thomas on the podcast. Sam, I've been on your podcast, so it's almost like a return favor.

[00:02:18] It was a bit longer than this one's going to be, although never say never, right? We can always go for a second round. But to introduce everyone to you, I was thinking how to best introduce you. So I quickly went on ChetGPT and I, you know, how would ChetGPT introduce you? And it says, you're a Brighton-based entrepreneur focusing on community, entrepreneurship and mindset. And I thought, this is a good summary. But you're doing so many things.

[00:02:42] And the most recent, you know, besides if I say your podcast you're doing, you're going into schools, talking about success. And you're doing community events for middle-aged men, which is one of the reasons you're here, you know, around success and meaning and purpose. And you're doing this, you're all right, mate. Are you all right, mate? Campaign. That's a mouthful, isn't it? But it's about preventing suicide.

[00:03:08] And so maybe you're probably much, much better suited to properly introduce yourself. But first of all, big, big welcome from us onto the podcast. Mate, that's very kind of this. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah, we had an amazing conversation when you obviously come on my podcast. And yeah, we did. We went quite deep and there was some, yeah, there was some, there was a lot of gold nuggets that come out of it. So I was really grateful for your time. But yeah, it's strange that my podcast is called Different Hats.

[00:03:38] I was always seen to be really proud of the fact that not only do I wear baseball caps, but it was obviously a metaphor for all the different businesses I run. And I was, I do this and I do that. And I was always a little bit worn out with a little bit of badge of honor, really. Like, I'm so busy. Like, you're this guy who's the busiest guy in Brighton and he's got all these different businesses. But what actually do you do? And I don't think I knew half the time, let alone other people. But what's been really interesting, I think the last, especially this year, which has been a big transition year for me,

[00:04:07] is finding, you know, your purpose and your mission, which has certainly been around, obviously, for me, reframing success and helping the world to see success differently is what so much of the podcast is about. And obviously a lot of the campaign. But with a view to try and reduce sort of male suicide, I believe, as you know, I've got my upcoming TED Talk, which is what it's all about, really. I really believe that with the podcast and the events I do around men's mental health and the programs I'm running in organizations,

[00:04:37] I believe that can have an impact. But I think real change comes if we can go into schools and we can start reframing success for kids really early. I believe that is where the real change comes. So it's strange from going from different hats and running lots of businesses to literally walking away. This month alone, like recording this in September, this month alone, I'm walking away from SBT now. So the magazine and the business club that I've built and run for the last decade, Fernballs, the five-a-side football leagues I've been running. I've just got one in London now, everything else is closed.

[00:05:07] And I'm just fully focusing and going all in on You're Right, mate, and the Different Hats Foundation. And that's where my passion and purpose seems to lie. So, yeah, it's an exciting chapter and scary in equal measure, possibly. You've mentioned quite a few things there that I want to talk about. So I don't know where to start. But, well, I'll start by saying thanks for coming on, Sam. I mean, you're certainly someone, this is the first time we've met, but you're certainly someone whose names come up a lot.

[00:05:36] Fiona Anderson is someone that I believe knows you well, but I'm in the same building as her. And I mentioned that you were coming on today. She's like, I'll say hi to Sam. Yeah, let's talk about success and success for children. I mean, sort of fairly recently, my daughter got a GCSE results. And there's someone we had on the podcast quite a few years ago now, Sam Rowe. And basically he was told not to bother sitting his exams because he had really bad ADHD.

[00:06:05] So I didn't get any GCSEs and then basically formed two sort of multimillion pound companies. And I've sort of sat at parents' evenings. And at the time it was my daughter's new head teacher. And he's talking about his love of Latin and the importance of getting us to get our children to read.

[00:06:29] And like they're year nine now, if they're not really engaging with reading, that's not how their brains work. Why aren't they then sort of, you know, shown another route? You know, basically I just feel like kids leave school feeling they're stupid and useless when it's, you know, a neurodiversity thing for want of a better word. And yeah, I just sort of wondered, well, is that the sort of thing you talk about?

[00:06:56] You know, what is it you go in and talk to the kids about? Exactly that. So my TED talk next week or in a couple of weeks time is pretty much exactly that. A little bit of obviously my personal story, but I'll go back to childhood and my understanding. I left school. I was obsessed with football, swarma and athletics. I excelled at sport, but academically I didn't do well.

[00:07:23] So I started to tell myself a story from quite a young age that I wasn't intelligent. And that is a story that I took into adulthood as well. So as a confident persona as potentially I might have by hosting events and podcasts, et cetera. Now I would sit many times and even up till probably only a few years, but still sit around tables and want to join in a conversation.

[00:07:45] But didn't because I never felt that I was intelligent enough to offer any value to that conversation because of the narrative or what I believe from the story I was telling myself from school. So for me personally, I never felt like I was enough. So I had to prove myself. So that's why I chased success, traditional metrics of success, set up businesses, strive to burn out because I wanted to.

[00:08:14] I thought only then if I become that millionaire, if I reach, if I become successful, then I'd feel enough. But that's all external and we don't look at intrinsically, right? So for me, going into schools, where does that, I started asking that question, where does that, where does that narrative start to form from success, those success metrics? Well, you look up the dictionary definition as it says, it's the attainment of fame, wealth and social status. Fame, wealth and status.

[00:08:43] So that's what we're told and society will say, that's what success looks like. And I wanted to ask what kids thought of that. So we go into schools and I ask in the very first session, I'll say, we're going to say the word success, go and write on a bit of paper what you think it is. And the majority and a lot of them words like money, being rich, being famous. Then you ask the question, who's successful? If you think of a person as successful, go and write their name down.

[00:09:13] Names like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Cristiano Ronaldo. So the metric, a measure of success is starting to form. And these are year six at 10 and 11 years old. So it's what in society is what we reward, right? We reward good grades. We reward trophies. And that's where success metrics come from.

[00:09:35] For me, for my journey and what I believe in the hundreds and hundreds of hours of podcasts where I've spoke to people about what success looks like from, you know, from teachers to local entrepreneurs to Olympic champions, world cup winners, multimillionaires, people like you and me. All of them people in between, they've not described success like that. They've got to the top of the mountain and maybe those people that have achieved the metrics of what society deems as success and not described it in that way.

[00:10:03] And then you start to find these common themes that come out. And it's about being true to yourself, finding out who you are, what your values are, balance, authenticity, presence, fulfillment, relationships. These are the metrics that we could look at. So we've developed a program when we go into school and over a seven week period, we teach emotional literacy. We talk about emotional literacy. We get them to understand and process their emotions, teach active listening skills.

[00:10:32] We talk about, you know, vulnerability, being strength, asking for help is a sign of courage and bravery. And it's changing that narrative to show that success isn't exactly what we achieve or purely success isn't purely what we achieve. It's what we experience. If we really, I truly believe that if we reframe that for them early so they're not searching for this external validation and all of the stuff I'm talking about.

[00:11:01] Don't, I don't mean, don't be ambitious. Don't mean, don't build a business. I'm sitting here in front of you at 47 years old going through my journey. I'm more ambitious today than I probably ever have been, but for the right reasons. I'm not searching for, I'm not chasing something to make me feel enough because I'm trying to, what I'd love every child to believe is that they are enough right now. Their existence in this world is enough.

[00:11:27] Not what they achieve on a test score, not how many trophies they win, but as they are right now, they're enough. And if we can, if we can get that across to them, I really believe that we can, they can still dream big and they can still follow them things, but know that their worth is not attached to that achievement. And that's all what I'm trying to encapsulate. In TED Talk, it's all what I'm trying to teach in schools and get that message across.

[00:11:51] I don't want kids to leave school as I did, believing I'm not intelligent, I'm not smart. Yeah, that's the route we're going down. I believe that will have a huge impact on the mental health crisis we're in, that people don't get to midlife and face adversity and not know how to deal with it as I didn't. It's interesting, the examples that you used there, you know, Ronaldo, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.

[00:12:18] And it's like, well, they're not even the, you know, 1% most successful. They're probably like the 0.00001% most successful people in their spheres. And yeah, that's like a pretty much unobtainable thing to aspire to. Yeah, I think it's just surprising that what it is, when you mention that word, I think they associate that word with that higher level of achievement, right?

[00:12:47] But wouldn't it be lovely to hear things like successful people might be maybe a nurse or, you know, even, I think because, again, we associate in society a certain, you know, hierarchy of what it looks like. And so much of that is based on achievement. And again, we reward that, right? We celebrate that. And it should be celebrated. That's hard. I'm not actually even putting down these people who have achieved.

[00:13:15] To get to what the level Cristiano Ronaldo got to, I wanted to be a footballer. He worked so hard and there's great attributes to that as well. And I don't think we should, I'll say to my kids every single night before they go to bed, I'll give them a kiss goodnight. I'll say, dream me a million dreams because I want them to dream big. I want them to be ambitious and I want them to go and believe in themselves that they can achieve anything they put their mind to. I really want them to believe that. I really do want them to believe that.

[00:13:42] At the same token, I want them to know that their worth and their value in this world isn't based on that achievement. That is just something they do. And we're focused in school so much on going, we ask kids all the time, don't we? Oh, what do you want to do when you grow up? Surely, surely a better question would be, who do you want to be? What type of person do you want to become?

[00:14:03] Because if we can identify that as in values, for example, I'd like to be a kind person, someone that's confident, compassionate, empathetic, ambitious, curious. Some of these are the values that I adhere to. So if I can be that person, then it's irrelevant what job I do. Whether I'm Sam the podcaster, Sam the entrepreneur, Sam the business owner, the magazine, whatever it is, that's just something I'll do.

[00:14:32] That's not who I am. I am someone that's got, hopefully, I'd like to believe that I'm a kind person, that's got integrity, that's got compassion and empathy. I'm curious. And I live my life according to those values. Then it's irrelevant. My identity is not wrapped up in the thing that I do. I think if we can, and look, I'm really aware as I'm talking that, you know, at 47, I'm going, who am I? Who's Sam Thomas? That's a big question to ask someone.

[00:15:00] Can we ask kids at 10, 11, who am I? And I know that's a, you know, they've got to go through life and they've got to experience things. But I do believe we could ask them what type of person they want to be. Like, what behaviors can we exhibit as a person? And then we ask them in there, like, oh, you want to be a confident person? Amazing. Like, let's picture a scenario. What would a confident person do in that scenario? Then we can help them with those skills and those tools and that language.

[00:15:26] And then, again, the feeling of I'm enough, my existence in the world is enough now. My values are these and I'm going to live in alignment with those. What an amazing place to be. I think that's, we can all get to that. Not to go on, but there's a book by, I think me and you might spoke about it on our podcast when you come on, Volker. The book by Bronnie Ware, Top Five Regrets of the Dying. She was a palliative nurse who spoke to people on their deathbeds.

[00:15:54] And the top regret of the dying is I've not lived a life true to myself. Not lived a life in accordance with my values. I've not lived a life. I've lived a life for other people's expectations, not my own. I had the courage, the courage to live a life to my own expectation and values. That's the biggest regret of the dieting. Why are we not focusing on identifying values and behaviours in children as well as men?

[00:16:22] When we do our men's programme, I'll sit there and you may get, I'm sure, when you do coaching, you're sitting there with people and then you're trying to ask, talk to them about values. And you say, identify some of your values. We've got an exercise we do where lots of values on there, just highlight the ones. You can tell people have never really thought about it. Never thought for the first time they're thinking about, actually, what are my values? I don't even know. I haven't even questioned that before. I haven't even identified it. So how can we live in alignment if we don't really know?

[00:16:51] And that work comes from looking inward as opposed to externally. Yeah, you're absolutely right. I was about to make that comment. You wouldn't believe how many people I coach, middle-aged or older, you're like, what are your values? No idea. Kind of like, who cares? But I had a good career. So why did you do that career? Family, friends, parents, right? And it's this outward looking rather than inward looking. And, you know, shameless plugs. That's why I do coaching and therapy, right? We're looking inside rather than on the outside, what's happening.

[00:17:20] And it's interesting what you say as well, right? I think you almost have to start with kids aged 10 to 11, right? I think once they get to puberty, they're so, if I say, overwhelmed, really, by social media. It's external influences. And I remember we talked about that. You know, since the iPhone got invented, the suicide rate had gone up, right? Because once all of a sudden we connected to so many people, you know, the Kardashians. I always use the Kardashians. I have no idea who they are. Everyone looks to the Kardashian and goes like, look how much money they make, right?

[00:17:48] They launched a lipstick and they're making 2 billion on the back of the lipstick. Who gives a fuck? I'm not a Kardashian, right? I'm not going to make 2 billion out of a lipstick, right? Definitely not a lipstick. And it is about what do you represent, right? Who are you? And answering that question and being, you know, as you say, being true to yourself. And I think it's so difficult for people to admit that because we, as a society, we tell people what they should and shouldn't be doing. And that's what people...

[00:18:18] Yeah. I think that word you use there, should, and it plays on my mind so much because I think like so many of us, there's a blueprint for life and you should have a career by this point. And often people, you should get this in school, you should go to university, you should find a partner, you should settle down, you should, should, should, should, should, should. And then often, I'm sure a lot of the people you get a lot... Sometimes we get to midlife and all the things we should do, if we haven't achieved them,

[00:18:48] then there's that feeling of failure. That's what happened to me. I just felt like a failure because I promised myself by this time, of course, I'm going to own my own house and have a business that's worth millions and I'm going to do this. I should, should, should, should, should. I didn't achieve that and felt like a failure. So you associate achievement and success, associate success with what you've achieved. And I think that rather than when I start, what changed for me was looking at, again, I'm surrounded by love.

[00:19:16] What I've achieved, if you like, because of the type of person I am, I've got a wealth of relationships around me. And if the metric in which I'm measuring my success is based on the relationships I've got, the people in my life, the love I'm surrounded by, wow, I am very successful if that's the metric I'm measuring it on. Whereas I was looking at it through one lens, which is what, again, which I believe society almost tells us. And again, I refer back to the dictionary definition.

[00:19:43] When we're focused on, that's the things we reward and that's the things we celebrate is fame, wealth and status. And that's what I really believe needs to change. Something that I bang on about is that you get a new story and it might be about a celebrity that's died or something, but it's always, they have a net worth of, and it's about their financial status. And I'm like, you never, why don't we ever have a new story?

[00:20:11] And it's like their karmic worth was, you know, off the scale. Well, you don't get that. You don't hear about the good things that people do. It's always, well, how, what were their assets? I completely agree. It's what we, as a society, it's what we measure. And again, it's the metrics, right? We measure certain things and we always feel that we have to measure something. So one of the reasons I'd spoke to the head of Hearst College, I said, I questioned him,

[00:20:39] I said, why is the focus in schools so much on academic intelligence and not emotional literacy or emotional intelligence? And he said, because we can measure it. We can measure, we can measure academic intelligence. And I'm like, and is it that we have to measure? It's got to be like, for me, if we do, are we looking at measuring the wrong thing? So for example, 200 school children die by suicide every single year, right?

[00:21:07] 200 school children. Imagine if we started focusing on emotional literacy in school and emotional intelligence and kids started to believe they are enough and they're worth. It's not based on a test score. So whether they succeed or fail in life, it's not based on a memory test because 30% of school children fit into that, the curriculum we teach. Imagine if we started to go, okay, we're going to teach this. And in the next five to 10 years, I'll come back on and we have a chat and we go, you know what?

[00:21:35] What we've measured is that there's not 200 school children. There's only 150 now. Well, there's only 100 school children dying by suicide because we're focusing. Wouldn't that be a better outcome or a better metric to measure something rather than I've got an A star in English and I'm intelligent and academically very clever and smart. But over here, we focused on a moment where we start to give children the skills, the tools, the language to really understand life and themselves.

[00:22:04] I think that's the measures. For me, they're the metrics that would be something if you have to measure something. Because one of the things we try and engage parents in the school program, we try and engage parents in it as well. Because a lot of the problem is that often parents don't have the skills and the language. We weren't taught it when we were younger. My mum and dad was brought up, me and you spoke about it. I was brought up, loved unconditionally. Loved unconditionally. My mum and dad are the most beautiful parents in the world. They are the loveliest, kindest people. They are wonderful.

[00:22:34] And yet, there was conversations that I have with my kids now that we didn't have because they didn't have the language. They didn't have the talk. We couldn't sit around and talk about emotions and understand and process it, knowing that I can feel sad at one point or feel anxious or fearful and excited at the same time or joyful. And they can live together, those emotions. But if I could understand them and then I could articulate them and maybe express that and have the language to do that and a space to be able to do that, and we didn't. And that wasn't their fault.

[00:23:03] They just didn't have the skills. Their parents were not like that. So we're trying to break that cycle. But when we spoke in schools and we spoke to the parents, a couple of them would be like, oh, okay, so the kids are coming out for seven weeks out of the curriculum and you're teaching this. How are we measuring the outcome of this? And I'm like, wow. Okay. And the person I'll do it with, Max, he was like, well, look, actually, we're not taking them out because it's a part of the PSHE curriculum. Well-being is part of PSHE.

[00:23:31] So we're just, actually, these kids are getting an advanced PSHE lesson. So in answer to that question, we're not just taking them out and seeing what it is. But an asset isn't part of the problem that we're trying to measure something here. We're trying to teach emotional literacy, kindness, and these values. Wouldn't it be just amazing if, you know what, I haven't measured anything, but I've noticed some change in behavior in the kids and they're kinder to each other. Wow. What an amazing thing to see if that was to be the case.

[00:24:00] So, yeah, I do. I think we're so focused on measure, return on investment, return on this, return on that. Where's the return on? If I'm putting something in and I'll get it from a funding point of view and from, you know, I'm going to have to go down that route in some respects when we're looking for funding. I'm going to have to say that we've done this and this is going to be some of the outcomes. And of course, I understand that. But I just think there's got to be a more holistic approach to it potentially.

[00:24:29] I was about to ask, I mean, how many schools can you reach by yourself, right? How much of an impact can you have? So, coming back to the funding question as well, right? What's the plan? Yes. Good question. Obviously, I've got someone with me at the moment. So, Max Marshall is a former primary school teacher. So, he's helping me deliver the programs. But we're actually in the process of setting up the Different Hats Foundation.

[00:24:52] So, we can go and get funding from some other organisations that, so we've been speaking with the Focus Foundation already, that they're looking at potentially funding the first eight schools. So, we can go in and deliver. My plan was always to deliver it into schools and not obviously charge them. Schools haven't got the finances to do that. So, we want to be able to fund it completely. I've got obviously the corporate programs where I go into organisations and deliver the men's programme, which a percentage of those, of that funding will go towards schools from

[00:25:21] a CSR perspective. So, there's a few different routes, obviously, standard charity fundraising events and etc. So, looking at funding different spaces like that. So, and yeah, the plan is to try and grow the foundation, get more facilitators, more teachers that I've spoke to that, you know, they're teaching, they go into, people go into teaching because they want to have an impact. And Max is a perfect example.

[00:25:50] He was in for 10 years as a primary school teacher and never felt that he could teach the things he wants because the curriculum doesn't allow that. So, I think there's more and more teachers out there. I've had some on the podcast who don't want to help kids, but maybe part of the programmes we're doing is what people want to teach, life skills, emotional literacy, the things that really make a difference and maybe can really make an impact. And I'm certainly not saying, I'm certainly not saying that the education system is completely

[00:26:18] a waste of time and talking about maths and English and that they're, of course, there, of course, some fundamentals have got to be there, but surely that can't be the complete focus. We've got to be a balance there and we've got to introduce this more. So, I'm hoping with the new Prime Minister, he talks a lot about wanting to disrupt the education system a little bit. I've heard him on a few occasions saying that education just fits one type of person and we're not all the same type.

[00:26:44] So, maybe there's some scope there for some government support potentially down the line. So, but yeah, we've got to get out. We've done the pilot in the school and we had the most amazing feedback and the change in just a short period of time. Like I said, the initial funding is hopefully coming in shortly that we can go out and go out to eight schools and keep running it and get more and more feedback and hopefully we can grab momentum and go from there. Fingers crossed. The new Prime Minister lets what go there.

[00:27:14] Yeah. That could be a whole other podcast though. But yeah, there's always hope, right? It can only get better, as I always say. Yeah, we're hearing some positive noise there, which is good. Before we drift into politics. So, I'd like to talk about your campaign around Your Right Mate as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, this is more middle-aged men than kids, obviously. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:27:44] Hopefully. Yeah, definitely. So, yeah, Your Right Mate campaign really started last year with just like, you know, you guys will know the statistics around suicide. You know, 84 men die every week in the UK. Like every time I share that statistic, it's the biggest killer in men under 50. It just blows my mind. I just can't grasp that men are more likely to kill themselves than any other like illness or road traffic accident, anything else. We're more likely to kill ourselves.

[00:28:12] And I'm like, it's got to change, hasn't it? And I think, like, so yeah, the Your Right Mate campaign had a couple of things where it started out just, can I get people to just check in? Just ask that question, right? Are You All Right Mate? And it's such a flippant, we ask people all the time, right? And the default answer is, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've done it. I'm sure we've all done it. But I'm just trying, because it's such a flippant comment, I'm trying to put meaning behind it.

[00:28:38] And if I can put, so when someone says, you're right, mate, I want them to know that actually what they're saying is, I really want to know how you are. I really want to know deep down, are you feeling okay? And it's great if you are, but if you're not, know that there's a space for you to, and I'm there to listen. And I wanted it to be a couple of things, not only just a check-in, but we're often, we're so, we live in a society, often we're so quick to criticise people. We see someone do something, we go, oh, you've done that wrong, or we're criticised. Whereas actually sometimes people are brave and they're doing something a bit different,

[00:29:08] putting themselves out there. I want it to be that, tell them you see them, tell them, say, look, I see you, I love what you're doing, I'm really proud of you, I think it's amazing. And the third thing is just to send someone a message, tell them that you love them. Just let them know how much they mean to you. And often as blokes, we tend not to do that as much. But tell your best mate, mate, I love you. For no other reason, just want to tell you I love you. Sometimes one of those three elements, one of those three messages might land, might just land when someone needs to hear it.

[00:29:37] Someone just feeling a bit, you know, in a dark place, not feeling great. But maybe, maybe that message just shifts the mindset a little bit to reach out and go, yeah, I'm not feeling great, but can we have a chat? Or thanks, I really needed to hear that today. Thanks, mate. And that's enough just to, I've done the assist training, which is amazing with the incredible Rose Rogans. And the essence of that is, can we keep someone safe for now?

[00:30:05] So if someone is in Christ or they're struggling, can we keep someone safe for now? And I think so much of that lends itself to the You're Alright Mate campaign in the sense that I'm not going to go in. I'm not there to come in and fix someone. I haven't got the skills. I'm not there, but I can listen. I can be there, but I can say I see and hear you. And often when we're in pain and we're struggling, often all we need is someone to see and hear us, right? That's all it is, right? Listening. We, I wonder why these stats are so high.

[00:30:35] I can't get my head around it. And as you know, we had Rose on the podcast and our events, and we talked to so many people around suicide over the years. And yeah, as she said, right? I mean, if you think one of your mates is down, just ask them, go to him and say, do you think of killing yourself? And what's the worst that's going to happen? He's not going to turn around and go like, oh, idiot and walks off, right? He's going to go like, actually, I'm not feeling well. Or what are you talking about, right?

[00:31:01] But, you know, you don't want to end up a week later and not having had that conversation. And I think that's the thing. I think you more or less sort of said it yourself that as men, rather than telling a friend that we love them or saying that we're struggling, it's easier to kill ourselves. You know, that is unfortunately, you know, the environment that we're in.

[00:31:26] And I mean, it's interesting that, well, you know, you are tackling it from both sides. Like you're getting in there with the kids to say, well, if we can teach this at such an early stage, then as you say, by the time men get to an age where they are sort of struggling with those sort of things, they've already been equipped of either, well, how to reach out to a friend.

[00:31:52] And yeah, it's, it is madness for want of a better word. And I think that it's true what you're saying, but by going into schools early and talk about emotional intelligence, right? Talking about it's okay to show emotions, to actually say, you know, I love you to another bloke without that having any meaning in terms of sexuality or anything like that, right? Teach kids early. That's okay to, you know, to not be okay, right?

[00:32:21] I mean, most of us grew up, you know, men don't cry. You know, I mean, the podcast is called Men Up, Men Down, right? Men Up for a reason, right? It's like... Yeah, exactly. Those are old archaic narratives. And, you know, there's, there's so much out there at the moment, you know, going to the manosphere and you talk about that and you, you know, there's a lot of these words around toxic masculinity and what that means and all of these things. But people questioning, what does it, what does it mean to be a man?

[00:32:50] What does that actually mean? And we've maybe lost certain identity, you know, you go back generations where we were hunter-gatherers, we go out and that's what a real man looks like, et cetera, et cetera. We're providers. And then now it's not like we're not living in that world anymore. Like, but there was sense of community and like where you would, you'd be able to sit around the campfire and share things and people would come in and help and et cetera, et cetera. We've lost that. You know, we're more connected because of social media and all the other things, but that's

[00:33:20] not real connection, right? Where it's, I say, almost fake connection where we're on there and people are putting an aspect of their life out, which is a highlight reel and people comparing themselves to that. And that's where, and then we feel more disconnected, then loneliness comes in and then we're, we just go into a cycle. Even like pub culture has changed slightly where blokes don't do that as much and don't get together and do that. And as they get that bit old, that's why like the suicide rates are the highest in middle aged men because they lose those friendship groups a little bit.

[00:33:47] And this, I've just started playing football again and it's literally given me a new lease of life. Just being around it, being around a community of men again, like blokes who are just that, yeah, there's a bit of banter and there's that, but it's just, you feel like you belong and you feel part of something. And I think we need to encourage that more in so many ways. Hello folks. It's Volker here. I hope you enjoy this week's episode.

[00:34:14] As you know, I coach executives, whether that is for leadership skills or sales leadership skills or working as a therapist too. There are few ways I can help you to get unstuck, improve your work life balance or become a better version of yourself. So you will be more productive and have more time for your family. Whatever it is, you can join my client list of people from General Electric, Pepsi, DHL, Boots and many others.

[00:34:44] Book a free exploratory call via my website www.opnat.us. That's O-B-N-A-T dot U-S. Now back to the show. I'm glad, glad that you brought up football because I'd say one of the things that sort of had the biggest positive impact on my mental health. And I think this is something that you're involved with as well, but it's youth football coaching.

[00:35:14] And my, I mean, my son's, he's now 14 and I used to help coach his team. And one of my friends who's son played in the same team, he's got a younger son. He's like, oh, won't you help me with the under nines? And I was like, why would I want to help with like a child who's not mine? You know, and it's been completely the opposite because I've got no ego involved.

[00:35:40] And again, you know, it's almost, maybe I'm being a bit cheesy, but I'm like, well, I don't see, you know, I'm no Pep Guardiola. But, you know, it's like, well, I can, I can help those kids develop a positive, you know, mindset. And yeah, you know, and also I'm like, they've just been at school and maybe they've had a day of the teacher, you know, as I say, bombarding them with those messages we've sort of been talking about.

[00:36:11] And yeah, you know, it's, but yeah, I sort of, is it your daughter's team that you coach? Yeah. Yeah. I've just, it's, it's again, you're right. Like I've played football all my life and it's given me so many from communications and I wasn't a bad player. I was going to be a professional footballer. I didn't make it, but I loved it. I played seven professional. I played a decent standard all my life and not being a, not playing for the last few years

[00:36:37] because of a knee injury and stuff, getting back into, like seeing my daughters start playing. I've got twins of 11 and one of them started playing about two or three years ago and she, it just being around it, I loved it. And I was in the coaches, someone else was coaching and she's just got to a stage that she, that she was in a really good team. They were flourishing and she just wasn't, she was on the periphery. She wasn't getting in and weren't playing, et cetera, but she still loved it. And the reason I started a team was because she wasn't going to, they weren't going

[00:37:05] to keep her on for this next year. So I just went to the club and said, look, I'll set up almost a development squad. And we're opening it. I said, and I was really honest with the club. I said, listen, this is what I teach in schools about success and what it's about. I want to set this team up purely on a basis that anyone can come and play. Ever standard you are, whether you've played football for five years or you've never kicked a ball, you're welcome. I will keep it completely on a rotation basis. So it won't be the best team plays every week.

[00:37:33] It'll be, if you haven't played, you're going to get a game. And all we're going to do is just ethos will be, they've got to enjoy it. They're going to build a togetherness and a team bonding. The results are the outcome. The results, win, lose or draw is the outcome of what we've done. If they experience and they enjoy it, that's all I care about. And I managed to get two of the first team women from Salt Dean who are amazing, Nikita and Megan, they're incredible. And they've come in and they've helped us. They're doing a lot of coaching.

[00:38:01] And I'm there and I'm just putting cones out at a minute, but I'll take them for games because obviously they play. And we've lost our first two games. We haven't scored a goal. We were absolutely battered. But you know what? I put a post out the other day. That first game, we lost 10-0. Every single one of them girls come off red-faced because they work so hard and big smiles on their faces. And I'm like, the score, the outcome says we lost. But we won that day because we come off. And what I wanted to achieve was every single one of them.

[00:38:30] One of them put a tackle in or made a pass and they stopped and high-fived each other. Do you know what I mean? It was magic. And I know that there's schools of thoughts here and people question it. And you go, oh yeah, but that's why we play sports to win. And I'm like, it can be. It can be. But again, the metric of success is based on results and thinking. And of course, if you're getting smashed 10-0 every week, maybe the enjoyment goes away. But if we're not focusing on that and we're just focusing on, look, we're going to get you together and you're going to enjoy it.

[00:38:59] You're going to have exercise every week. You're going to build relationships, friendships for life. I've got mates who I played football with when I was 10. I'm still mates with today. When I stopped playing semi-professionally at 30, the group of lads, Thamesmead, 17 years ago, I'm still on a WhatsApp group. And we meet up for a beer once a year. That's nothing to do with whether we won trophies or not. That's to do with togetherness and friendships and relationships. And there's something special in that, I think.

[00:39:28] I'm so glad you've said that because that's sort of something that I say to the kids. I'm like, these are your brothers. And, you know, these are the people that it's like you'll forget the individual games, but you'll remember like this, this camaraderie. And yeah, I love the fact that you're like, well, I'm still in touch with all my old teammates. So, yeah. It's gold. And football gives you so much. And I've started this Vets team. I started it because I've been desperate to play.

[00:39:58] And the week before our very first summer league game, I had my motorbike accident and broke my shoulder. So I haven't played. And then finally recovered. And now I'm ready to play again. And our first league game was last Friday. And I'd been booked six months ago to go and do some work in Sheffield for that night. So I've still missed that game. Next Friday, the 25th, we're recording this now, the 25th of September. Finally, I'm going to be out on the pitch and play. And I've already visualized our first win and me scoring a hat-trick, of course. But I'll be happy if I last take two.

[00:40:28] Left foot, right foot and diving, Heather. We're taking it. I thought it wasn't about the result. Wait a second. Listen, the best result will be, can I last longer than 10 minutes? And then I'll be happy with that, mate, to be honest. Without an injury. It's the only thing. That's the only thing. But yeah, we'll see. But in all seriousness, middle-aged men, I said to the guys, and I know this sounds a bit, you know, and we do play to win as a bit of a different atmosphere. But I even said to the guy, we've played five games and lost five games. But I said to him at the start, the very first thing, this is the stuff I go about and I talk about men's mental health.

[00:40:56] Just being around you lads has given me a new lease of life. And I love it. I said, the result's going to be the result. I said, I'm 47 now. A lot of us are older. We don't know whether next week's our last game or we play till we're 70. My father-in-law plays for England over 70s. So maybe we get an England cap at 70. But we might be next week's our last game to go out every week and enjoy every single game. And win, lose or draw, we'll be in the club ourself, don't we have a beer. And we've done exactly that. Every game we've gone in the club, we've had a beer after on a bit of a laugh.

[00:41:26] And I said to him on the post the other day, we've lost again. I said, listen, we've set out with this to go, can we get a great bunch of lads together and have a bit of a laugh? And we're doing exactly that. And we're all good players, actually. And the results will come, I think, if they do or not, whatever. But that will come. They'll just be the outcome. But what we've achieved already is a great bunch of lads who all go in that bar after and we all have a bit of banter and a laugh, irrespective of what we've lost. And they've all got...

[00:41:55] And you've created a group that have got people to talk to when they're going through shit. Exactly, exactly that, mate. Exactly that. So, yeah. And it's weird, because you sort of go, I feel for the first time possibly in my life, when you find purpose and you find maybe what you're meant to be doing and living in alignment with values, it's not just in what I do in my work. It's not just everything I'm doing in life at the moment seems to be in alignment with those.

[00:42:22] Because I wholeheartedly believe what I'm talking about. When I talk about success and talk about the metrics and all of that thing, I'm reframing it. I wholeheartedly believe it. And I feel that's filtering out into football and with the kids and all the stuff that I'm trying to do. And, yeah, hopefully that comes across. So, all we can do, all we can do is our best. And all we can do is, I've said it before, I'm not going to change the world. Am I? You know, I'm not going to change the education system.

[00:42:52] But can I? Can I change my little small corner of the world? Maybe that creates a small ripple that maybe has a bearing impact. Who knows? We can only do our best, I guess. Just as you said that, look over there. I have a quote on the wall of Mr. Steve Jobs, who we all know, right? Who I think his success metrics might have been money, right? He was the richest man on the grave here. He was. He was. We're here to put a dent in the universe. Otherwise, why else be here, right? I mean, if you can make a dent, right?

[00:43:21] Then that's the beginning, right? It's getting started. And I think you're doing a great job. So you definitely have my support. And I'm sure you have David's support as well. That's very kind. Well, once I get invited on your podcast, you'll have my support, Sam. Of course. Of course. There's an invitation there. Of course, my friend. Of course. Thank you. It's funny you mentioned it. David, you need to hear for that. And if you do come on, you get a hat as well. So you'll be fine, mate. You'll be fine. Well, I didn't get a hat. Wait a second. Did you not? You've got hair. That's why. There you go.

[00:43:52] I got hair. So unfortunately, we're coming to an end. Yeah. As you know, we could go on much, much longer. Maybe you have. Thank you so much for the work you're doing. It's amazing. And whenever we can support it in any way, we do that. And hopefully, people listening to this and go like, yeah, this is great. Let's see how we can support that. Or start something similar, right? Get in touch with you and say, I want to do something similar in the school of my children

[00:44:19] or coach my children's football team, whatever it is. Because it's this intrinsic motivation. That's what it is, isn't it? It's like, who cares about... I mean, if I played football, no one would care about scoring. Which is why I don't play football, right? But maybe I should for all the other reasons. If people want to find out more, where do they go? Where can they find out more about you? Yeah, sure. I'm on all the social channels.

[00:44:43] So look me up, Sam Thomas on LinkedIn or Sam underscore Thomas underscore DH on Instagram. Or go to the Different Hats website. So different-hats.co.uk. And then all the information about what we do and the podcast is on there. So yeah, look me up, DM me. And yeah, I'd love to always have a conversation and anything I can do to support. So last time, I'm genuinely grateful for the opportunity to come on and chat and share the message and stuff. So yeah, thank you. And thanks for what you guys are doing as well. It's important.

[00:45:13] Like I said, the more people that are spreading messages around this and doing stuff, hopefully the more impact we will have together, right? But yeah. Awesome. Thank you so much. Thanks, Sam. Lovely. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it. Thanks for listening to this week's episode. Feel free to reach out to Volker or David via our website, www.manupdown.com

[00:45:42] or podcast at manupdown.com with any feedback or to let us know what topics you'd like us to cover in the future. Hear you again soon.